Veteran Canadian mixed martial artist Chris “The Menace” Clements is hitting a very prime time in his life, both inside and outside the cage that he calls his office. Outside the gym Clements is riding high with his recent marriage to long-time sweetheart Karissa Dyer-Clements, and the couple are also expecting their first child in March.
“We’re due on March 14th so trying to get the house ready right now my kitchen’s half torn apart, got new cupboards on the floor, old cupboards on the floor.” he says, clearly enjoying the chaos.
“Nursery is…dresser’s are all put up, cribs done still gotta paint the room. I don’t know what we are having so I gotta wait ’til the little thing pops out so we can figure out what color we are going to paint the room.”
All this is life outside the gym and cage and Clements is hitting a very cool stride in his life.
Things are running just as well if not better inside the gym and cage, as Clements is on a four-fight win streak and holds two Canadian titles. Clements got the news he has been working for all of his life in January as he signed a four-fight contract with the UFC and will make his debut against Keith Wisniewski on April 21st in Atlanta.
“I had a couple agents call me after the Clementi win, a couple of different organizations call me up wanting to manage me and stuff,” he said. “A friend of mine Jason Harkes, who runs Professional Fighting Championships in Windsor, had been talking to a guy named Jason Chambers. He made a lot of sense to me and he said he was going to talk to Joe Silva.
“January 6th or so he gave me a call, I was on the treadmill with Mark Hominick. He says to me all casual like it was no big deal, ‘we’ve been trying to get you in to the UFC, we got you in, you are going to be fighting Keith Wisniewski, it’s a four fight contract,’….and I was like whoa whoa wait. I thought it was gonna be bad news, but when he told me it didn’t really hit me at all.”
Clements has been training for years at Adrenaline Training Center amongst current UFC veterans Mark Hominick and Sam Stout. “I was at the gym so Mark announced it to the whole gym and stuff and shook my hand and I was pretty pumped.”
It takes a lot of love and support to be able to make your dreams come true, and it is clear that Clements has plenty of it in his camp.
“It didn’t really hit me until I got home to tell my wife, cause my wife’s been with me since I turned pro pretty much…she knows what it meant to me to get in to the UFC,” Clements said. “I tried to sneak around about it, but there was no being cool at all. I just told her and she started crying right away.”
Clements’ debut was originally set for mid March in Montreal, where friends and family would have been right there to show him support. Scheduling issues at the venue caused the UFC to shift that card to Atlanta in April. While a bit disappointed that his family will not be able to attend, there is no taking the shine off this debut, and Clements has a simple solution for his fans.
“I just plan on going in there and putting on a good show so the UFC has me back for the next Canadian show.”
I am looking forward to Clements vs Wisniewski and a debut that is long overdue.
Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA, MMA Editor at CKSN.ca and correspondent for MMACanada.net.
Catch him on Facebook and Twitter at wakafightermma.
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